Balloon Roadtrip #4 – Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta 2013

This post is going to majorly be photos but they do not do justice to the experience at all. Waking up at 5am and watching the sunrise as hundreds of balloons soar into the sky inches away from you is incredible. It was absolutely freezing that early in the desert but seeing the dawn colours appear over the horizon was really stunning. It makes you feel so small and unimportant and you just get lost in the happy atmosphere as everyone cheers when a balloon flies off. Having hundreds of balloons go 360 around you is fucking insane. If you ever get the chance, I hand on heart think it was one of the most beautiful and exciting things I have ever seen.

You literally walk around this huge field with all the different pilots and their teams setting up their balloons and once the green flag is up for ok wind conditions they just start inflating and off they soar. You can walk up as close as you want to them and talk to the pilots before they go. It started with the normal shaped balloons and then the more abstract/unusual ones went up.There are also markets with food vendors and shops surrounding the field.

After the morning ascension we decided to go to Waffle House for breakfast. I’ve never been to one but heard it’s this really famous American chain so we had to check it out. I felt like Leslie Knope ordering my waffles and grits. It was yummy considering we’d been up since crazy early o’clock but the atmosphere was kind of weird.

We then took some zzzz’s and went back to Balloon Fiesta for the night-time show. They inflated all the balloons and at the same time would turn their burners on and off to create a glowing almost strobe light party haha. It was cool having all the balloons essentially dance around you. There was then a firework show that went on for half an hour which was really fun and a great end to the day.

Thus the end of the Balloon Roadtrip and I would definitely recommend it to anyone.